Big Ten Problem
Joe Paterno talked about the disadvantage of playing in the Rose Bowl for a Big Ten team after the game.
``There's a lot of things in coming out here. The traveling, practice, 45 minutes on the bus to get there, 45 minutes to come back. There's a lot of little things that go on in there that I think in all fairness, when you play Southern Cal, they're home and and they practice where they normally practice, it's a lot easier for them to get ready.
``I think the Big would do itself a favor if we could play a week or two after the season we have right now.''
This is all true. Road games are really tough...
And it's also the main reason why I have no respect for the SEC and the fact that they play 8 home games every year (4-5 of which are against terrible teams) and most of their road games are all within 100 miles of their home stadiums.
Just winning home games alone gets SEC teams to 8-4. Total BS.
45 minutes to get to the Rose Bowl and 45 minutes to return to the hotel? Well, how does SC get to the Rose Bowl, by stealth jetliners?-- And what does the time it takes to get back to the hotel have to do with playing the game?
Granted, road games are obviously tougher than playing at home, but teams usually travel 2-days prior to a road game, whereas for the Rose Bowl Penn State was out here for about one-week prior.
I don't want to make some crack about senility...but one has to wonder with a comment like that just how Paterno can forget the dominance of the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl during the 90s.
Back then, when it was really about the best schools from both conferences playing each other...the PAC won once from '93 to '00...once!
Then the BCS gets involved and Southern cities start balking at how poorly the PAC 10 school travel...and pretty soon USC is "demoted" on a near yearly basis to the Rose Bowl.
Can't Paterno just accept that if the BCS was willing to put USC in a "better bowl" he'd get a more reliable victim in the Rose Bowl (maybe Ohio State?)